"I _know_. It isn't that she's with him at every moment, but that her thoughts are with him when they're apart. He puzzles her; he piques her; she's always talking and asking about him. It's their difference in everything that does it. I don't mean to say that her heart is touched, and I don't intend it shall be. So, you mustn't ask him to the shore with you, and if you've asked him already, you must get out of it. If you think he needs sea air, you can get him board at some of the resorts. But not near us." She asked, in default of any response from her son, "You _don't_ think, Matt, it would be well for the acquaintance to go on?" "No, I don't mother; you're quite right as to that," said Matt, "if you're not mistaken in supposing--" "I'm not; you may depend upon it. And I'm glad you can see the matter from my point of view. It is all very well for you to have your queer opinions, and even to live them. I think it's all ridiculous; but your father and I both respect you for your sincerity, though your course has been a great disappointment to us." "I know that, mother," said Matt, groaning in spirit to think how much worse the disappointment he was meditating must be, and feeling himself dishonest and cowardly, through and through. "But I feel sure," Mrs. Hilary went on, "that when it's a question of your sister, you would wish her life to be continued on the same plane, and in the surroundings she had always been used to." "I should think that best, certainly, for a girl of Louise's ideas," said Matt, trying to get his own to the surface. "Ideas!" cried his mother. "She _has_ no ideas. She merely has impulses, and her impulses are to do what people wish. But her education and breeding have been different from those of such a young man, and she would be very unhappy with him. They never could quite understand each other, no matter how much they were in love. I know he is very talented, and all that; and I shouldn't at all mind his being poor. I never minded Cyril Wade's being poor, when I thought he had taken her fancy, because he was one of ourselves; and this young man--Matt, you _can't_ pretend, that with all his intellectual qualities, he's what one calls a gentleman. With his origin and bringing up; his coarse experiences; all his trials and struggles; even with his successes, he couldn't be; and Louise could not be happy with him for that very reason. He might have all the gifts, all the virtues, under the sun; I don't deny that he has--" "He has some very serious faults," Matt interrupted. "We all have," said Mrs. Hilary, tolerantly. "But he might be a perfect saint--a hero--a martyr, and if he wasn't what one calls a gentleman, don't you see? We can't be frank about such things, here, because we live in a republic; but--" "We get there, just the same," said Matt, with unwonted slang. "Yes," said his mother. "That is what I mean."